Australians stranded in Qatar will soon be able to bus to Saudi Arabia as the federal government works to bring citizens home safely from the Middle East.
With Qatari airspace closed, Assistant Immigration Minister Matt Thistlethwaite said bus transfers from Doha to Riyadh would become available.
“We’ve made a safety assessment that the opportunity for people to return home is much better in Riyadh, because there’s larger openings of airspace,” the assistant minister told reporters on Saturday.
Once in the Saudi Arabian city, travellers will need to secure seats on commercial flights back to Australia.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will provide “basic” accommodation support.
Bus transits out of Kuwait are also being considered.
Mr Thistlethwaite said the government was exploring “all options” to return thousands of Australians stranded due to the conflict, including government-commissioned repatriation flights.
For now, commercial flights remain the best option.
“The Australian consular officials in the region and DFAT officials here at home are working 24/7 to ensure that we can do all we can to support Australians to return home,” Mr Thistlethwaite said.
The comments follow claims by exhausted Australians returning from the strife-torn region that airlines have been of more help to them than the government.
The first flight to Australia from Abu Dhabi landed in Sydney on Friday morning with only a third of its seats filled.
Etihad EY450 passenger Julie Pearce questioned whether the government was working with airlines to fill the few planes leaving.
She said she was only able to get on the 300-seat Boeing Dreamliner through her daughter, who used to work for the Emirati airline and had a connection.
“They could have got a lot of people on there this morning and they didn’t,” Ms Pearce said.
Fellow passenger Trudy Schipelliti also questioned efforts to fill the planes.
“It was pretty disgusting because there are a lot of people waiting to get out,” she said.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she was disappointed at reports flights were arriving with hundreds of empty seats.
Twelve regional countries have been attacked by Iran in the past week, including Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
As of Saturday morning Sydney time, 1324 Australians had returned on eight flights from the Middle East since Wednesday.
Further services are scheduled, subject to increased drone and missile activity, from Dubai to both Sydney and Melbourne on Saturday.
The department has meanwhile opened registrations for its Crisis Portal for Australians in Bahrain, Kuwait and Lebanon, in addition to Iran, Israel, Qatar and the UAE.
Smartraveller continues to advise Australians not to travel to Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Qatar, Syria, the UAE and Yemen.
The federal opposition has called for government-commissioned repatriation flights.
There are 24,000 Australian travellers and residents in the UAE, with about 115,000 across the broader Middle East.
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